The New Encores! Season: Three That Dared

The upcoming City Center Encores! season will feature a touch of operetta with Music in the Air, a masterpiece of Bernstein and Robbins, and a bold political satire in the form of a 1940s musical comedy. By its very nature, Encores! is, always and forever, looking back. But in the 2008-2009 season, we're presenting three shows that share the hallmark of eagerly, some would say recklessly, looking forward--three pieces that, in their own time, pointed toward an unknown future. The artists who created them were consciously trying to break the mold and take the art form someplace it had never been before. Each of these shows, in its own way, had a lot on its mind. Music in the Air, On The Town, and Finian's Rainbow all delighted in taking chances, formal, political and dramatic. The earliest, 1932's Music in the Air, which we... [read full story]